IA News

OLSEN: “Complicating New York’s tax code by forcing digital marketplace platforms to collect and remit sales tax for third party vendors makes it harder for innovative companies to grow in the Empire State.”

ALBANY, NY – According to a report in today’s New York Daily News, a new poll found 69 percent of New Yorkers oppose Governor Cuomo’s unfair and burdensome plan to force online marketplaces like eBay, Etsy and Amazon to collect sales taxes on any transaction involving buyers from New York.

“New Yorkers want legislators to focus on growing the internet economy,” said John Olsen, Internet Association Executive Director for the State of New York. “Complicating New York’s tax code by forcing digital marketplace platforms to collect and remit sales tax for third party vendors makes it harder for innovative companies to grow in the Empire State. It flies in the face of logic. Internet Association will continue to work with the legislature and governor on laws that help jobs and entrepreneurs flourish in New York

Last month, in testimony testified before the State Legislature on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal, Olsen argued that online marketplaces are an essential segment of the internet economy. Including marketplace providers in New York State Tax Law would set a new precedent for discriminatory tax collection by attempting to create parity between a marketplace and a vendor that rightly has the responsibility of sales tax collection in New York. If applied to a brick and mortar marketplace for example, this proposal would require large shopping centers to collect the sales tax for all purchases made in their tenant stores.